They keep pulling me back in. Had planned some travel and time off beginning this week, but the good Jeanne Devon (aka "AKMuckraker" of The Mudflats) tricked me into talked me into stopping by Netroots Nation, being held in Vegas this week, on my way outta Dodge. As Sin City was largely on our route outta town, and as I don't get many any opportunities to see the Alaska folks like her, Shannyn Moore, and dozens of others from around the country who I've known for years, but have never met in person, I figured why not stop in and both cover it a bit, and say hello to 'em all.

Have been doing so, and reporting some of it in various spurts via Twitter over the last 24. As I can get caught up over the next few days (the conference is ongoing through the weekend), I'll try to bring what I can here as well, as merited and/or newsworthy and/or amusing and/or interesting.

But after a late late night at Rio's Pai Gow tables with Jeanne, Shannyn, Mike Rogers of RAW STORY and BlogActive (he the "outer" of Larry Craig, and arguably my "blog father" as one of the earliest blogger supporters of this site) as well as various and sundry other progressive trouble makers, muckrakers and decidedly not professional gamblers, I'll have to start slow.

For the moment then, a quick recap of impressions, photos --- and even some news of sorts --- from yesterday, which included an unscheduled, somewhat hard-hitting radio interview with Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas on Nicole Sandler's Show (audio below) and some 30 minutes of my attempting to get answers --- on anything --- from the less-than-respectable rightwing "voter fraud" deceptionist John Fund of Wall Street Journal, Fox "News," and all places wingnut...

Fraud, Ironies & Markos Moulitsas

We have attempted here, over the years, to hold Daily Kos, and its founder Markos Moulitsas, accountable for derailing election fraud investigations and questions by self-defeatingly marginalizing such efforts as "conspiracy theory" and banning users --- actually purging diaries --- from his site when they dare to discuss such important concerns.

Recently, Markos was forced to denounce a year and a half of public polling by the firm Research 2000, which his site had commissioned and published, after it was discovered that they may have been entirely fraudulent, as I discussed at some length a few weeks ago.

In that piece, I had focused on the comment he made, while denouncing his own surveys, asserting that "[W]ithout full transparency of results, this fraud would not have been uncovered."

I find no small amount of irony in that statement, given his site's own assaults on those who seek such "full transparency" in election results, in hopes of uncovering fraud (or even innocent tabulation error) where it might exist. That effort has seen this site targeted by a number of Kos' front page authors --- including the formerly-pseudonymous Dana "DHinMI" Houle --- as a conpsiracy theorist's "nutter site."

While working with Radio Or Not's Nicole Sandler (a colleague who frequently fills in for Randi Rhodes) during her broadcast from the conference yesterday, we were able to pull over Markos to ask him a few "tough questions," among them those mentioned above.

In regard to that irony, questions about which I had previously emailed him for comment, but received no reply, he told us that he only sees the comparison "If you stretch and pull and tug, then maybe you can make the analogy."

He explained that dKos does "not allow conspiracy theories," due to "the lack of proof." So I asked him if he understood that it's been impossible to get at the "actual evidence" because of the insane election system we've allowed ourselves to have in this country.

Unlike with his surveys, I noted, "we still don't have the raw data" from the various questionable elections we've seen over the last several years, because citizens are simply not allowed to review those raw data.

"We can't get at the raw data that were used to determine your surveys were fraudulent," I noted, before asking him if he would have banned users at Daily Kos six months ago, had they charged that his Research 2000 surveys were fraudulent, before "raw data" evidence was made available.

That's the general content. You guys can analyze the rest, for now. The audio of the interview --- courtesy of Nicole's Radio or Not --- can be heard below, with much, but not all, of the discussion about the fraud issues occurring in the first 13 minutes. There are other such confrontational issues --- among them, what seemed to me to be Markos' somewhat naive attitude about the media and the public airwaves --- in the interview as well.

As noted, we're scheduled for both a bit of travel and downtime after leaving Las Vegas, so how quickly --- if ever --- we'll be able to get to this in detail, remains an unknown for the moment. But as it turns out, professional Wall Street Journal, Fox "News" liar, and "voter fraud" deceptionist and author John Fund, is attending the conference for some reason.

We were alerted to his presence in the audio at a panel discussion on climate change issues and legislation, and took the opportunity to say and hello and try to ask him a few questions as the panel let out.

After introducing myself by name and blog, and asking him if I could ask him to answer a few questions, he proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes or so trying to get away from me, refusing to answer any questions, appealing to the media coordinators at the conference to have them get me to leave him alone (they didn't), and trying to escape any accountability at all for his years of undermining democracy in the disingenuous name of trying to save it from imaginary Democraic "voter fraud."

I've appeared on both Fox "News" with Fund, as well as on the radio with him (where he hung up during the first commercial break --- even as he claimed over and over again yesterday, that he didn't hang up, his cell phone simply lost reception, conveniently, during the first break, after a very confrontational first segment). You can watch and listen to both of those appearances here.

This was the first time I'd ever gotten the opportunity to say hello in person, and try to get him on record answering a few important questions. He refused, repeatedly told me I needed to email him a request for an interview --- despite the fact that he had hung up on me during the last one in 2008, and despite that fact that there he was, a public figure, at a public forum, with, apparently, quite a bit of time to answer such questions as video cameras were rolling around us.

The O'Reilly-style "ambush interview", as one could call it, since it was unscheduled, and there he was, and there I was, proceeded to go from the conference's panel room, to the convention center lobby, out to the parking lot, back into the lobby, and then into the press room where he sought escape. He didn't get any. Though he didn't answer any of my questions either.

Does he retract his assertions about ACORN committing "voter fraud", given that the videos have been proven to have been, in official investigation after official investigation, deceptively-edited hoaxes?

Did he plan to re-issue his book prior to the '10 election, as he has done with elections past? And, if so, did he plan to include any information on the actual voter registration fraud carried out by the head of the California Republican Party's voter registration firm, Mark Anthony Jacoby of Young Political Majors, who was arrested on the day I appeared on Fox "News" with Fund and who eventually pleaded guilty to the charges?

You get the idea. All of those questions he simply refused to answer, no matter how many times and ways I asked them, even with a simple "yes" or "no".

For the record, he also refused to answer questions from Mike Rogers of BlogActive (the reporter who is seen in the documentary film Outrage and who, as mentioned above, was responsible for the outing of Larry Craig and many other closeted, anti-gay homosexuals), which included the simply, yes or no question: "Are you a heterosexual?"

If/when I can get around to getting a copy of the video tape of the confrontation so that I can edit it down to a watchable length --- and avoid the type of deceptive editing favored by Fund and his friends like Breitbart and Fox --- I will do so. Until now, my description of the amusing and unseemly affair will have to suffice, along with the photo above.

Impressions, Observations, Odds & Ends

As this is my first time at Netroots Nation, I should note how impressed I've been with both the organization and the attendance of the entire affair. From the well thought out panels and workshops (though not a one on Election Integrity! Guess that's not an issue of concern this year?), to the various plenary sessions, to even the meals and entertainment.

Last night's evening plenary in the main ballroom was attended by several thousand and included, among others, Daily Show creator Lizz Winstead (among her best lines, as tweeted last night: "Hannity asking 'where is racist element in Tea Party?' like asking where is racist element in Mel Gibson?'") and progressive radio talker and MSNBC host Ed Schultz. As detailed via Twitter (here, here, here, here and here for example), Schultz offered a fiery, no-holds-barred stemwinder, fiercely critical of, naturally, Fox "News", but most notably Obama and the Democrats, with most of his condemnation targeted at "conservative" Democratic Senators Baucus, Lincoln and Stabenow. His general takeaway beyond all of that: "We progressives have our work cut out for us at this conference!"

Markos, pushing the crap in 2010 that Bush won fairly in 2004 is the ultimate conspiracy theory! It exposes your ignorance and/or your complicity in trying to coverup the facts of the 2004 stolen election.

You do not live in the "reality-based community" as you call it (that is your favorite regurgitation).

No Markos, you permanently reside in the faith-based realm of election fraud naysayers and disinformationists.

The facts of the 2004 election theft have been revealed in spades over the last six years.

The interview with Markos was absolutely fascinating. I'll give him credit for not fleeing as John, (Wall Street Journal, (wall flower)), Fund did, but did he insinuate that we should trust Comcast to bring a more progressive bent to MSNBC?

Brad was a perfect gentleman, as honest people must be these days, but Markos surely dominated the conversation, didn't he? Seemed to say that Brad had "sour grapes" because he couldn't or wouldn't get on the KOS blog. Wake up dude! This is a fight for some kind of democracy by this November; NOT a game!

Great interview from Netroots Nation, Brad. It is like questioning a far right winger...which Markos was before he decided to infiltrate the left. If his gross misogyny in his writings and blog over the years wasn't enough to turn people off, then his lying hypocritical ways certainly should be.

Markos Moulitsas is a hypocrite, liar and has no integrity. Do as I say, not as a do. Censor, ban, but act outraged when the right does it to him or one of the groups/people he supports.

Okay, let's address the lying of Markos.

I know someone personally who was banned from Kos, their post deleted for ONE incident on one day. So, as far as knee jerk reactions, YES. It was Susan who banned them because he made one comment with photo of the monkey see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil and said that Susan was doing the same on election integrity issues. It was a very benign comment and people thought it was funny and recommended it up.

She got pissed, and instead of following Daily Kos' own posted procedures on banning, she just deleted his comment and banned him. Keep in mind, his comment got NO troll ratings and was even rated up by several people.

So, Markos Moulitsas is a liar...they have been banning people for simply disagreeing OR holding them accountable for their hypocrisy and censorship. Also, Markos allows "conspiracy theories" all the time with no evidence, plus disparaging comments, pettiness, etc. both on HIS part and the part of his front pagers. The echo chamber that is his blog is nothing more than a Democratic Party talking piece.

Markos has a lack of integrity that I discovered back in 2003 already. The reason he does not allow the election integrity posts is because he makes money off of advertising from the Democratic machine, and to admit election fraud as he and his front pagers have said "might discourage people from voting" and if he can't control the myth of "you just elect more democrats and the country will turn around", then he can't get Democratic advertisers and won't have his bread and butter. It is ALL self serving, as is EVERYTHING Markos Moulitsas does. Markos is the left's equivalent of the Rush, Glens, etc. Soooooo sick of that guy. Even when he supposedly speaks out against Dems, it is contrived, measured, and all about getting more publicity for himself and his site. No real bite.

You want to hear something even funnier? The person Susan banned just created a new account and started blogging regularly...careful to play the ego game you have to play on there...and they ended up with recommended diaries and even being listed as a favorite blogger, their writing quoted by others, etc. It is so ironic that they would be banned for hurting the ego of a staff member but then elevated by the community writings. One day that same blogger is going to go public with it and confront them with all their writings to show what a lying @ss Kos is.

Markos is a weasel of the worst kind and an example of why the left (who is constantly infiltrated by the right) will never truly represent the people or have any long term progress.

Markos Moulitsas is an intellectually dishonest schmuck. He is slippery and deliberately obfuscating what he knows are legitimate issues. Playing dumb. Why? He's working for the CIA. How else did he just parachute into the progressive community? A classic CIA tactic. Parachute in, take over, control the agenda, divert away from strategically defined areas, obfuscate.

I commented recently at another post here lamenting the lack of interviewing skills of the corporate media.

Our own beloved Brad Friedman, however, does know how to conduct an interview. He knows his stuff, has the strength of character to not be intimidated by his interviewees, thinks well on his feet, and is unfailingly polite while never losing sight of the ball. These are extraordinary skills to find all together in one human being these days.

I believe I've seen more actual interviewing by Brad and other netrootsians he's linked to at BradBlog in just the last two years than in decades of standard TV fare.( Again with the notable exceptions of Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart. Bill Moyers, too, when he was on.)

It's weird how much truth is here at the margins and how little in the mainstream. Thank goodness for the margins.

TO the Netroots Nation;
I just can’t understand most of my fellow Democrat/Progressive/ Liberal brethren… Sure everyone is fighting for their own special vital issue… SURE Progressive spokespersons have provided MORE than enough information to bring out that righteous ANGER that’s in all of us… Sure you have your gatherings and events that try and get national attention for all those special vital issues/causes… AND YET YOU PEOPLE REFUSE TO ADDRESS THE ROOTS OF ALL OUR PROBLEMS!

Conscious Man Consultants, “the Cyber Think Tank of the FUTURE” (consciousmc.blogspot.com) has been on the cutting edge of a whole new strategic dimension in politics. We don’t want to work or include the Republican Party… WE WANT TO DESTROY THEM! Kick the Conservative wacko bastards down to 3rd Party status, storm the #*~/‘n Breitbart types in their places of work and jam a wooden stake in the dark, evil heart of Conservative Labyrinth before they do anymore damage to our beloved USA!

Most people on the LEFT are sticking to that old timey, stuck in the chi-chi 60’s, response training, non-confrontational way of PROTEST. A technique that become as impotent as Dick Cheney’s sex life (lol).

The powers-that-be have stuck you COWARDS behind barbed wire fences, buried stories and Conservative talk radio/Fox News ridicule… BUT they STILL REFUSE TO FIGHT BACK!

NONE of the news networks are covering the Netroots Nation event except for a critical segment on Saturday Fox News HQ. The FOX reporter was right outside the doors of the Netroots conference and NOT ONE of these leftwing pussies had the balls to go outside and ATTACK the right-wing propaganda puppet. Isn’t it funny how the national news media goes out of it’s way to cover 20 morons at a Tea Party rally but have ignored the gatherings of 10 of 1000’s anti-war, environmental, government accountability (etc) activists.

John S. Saloma III warned the Left to fight back WAY BACK in 1983 with his masterpiece “Ominous Politics…” But Democrats/Liberals/Progressives are too self absorbed and close-minded to see the LIGHT! The Concerned Citizens of America (concerncitizens.blogspot.com) have the plan every American patriot should be supporting. The only thing that should matter in 2010 and beyond is to help us DESTROY the Republican Party. If these PoliticHo, multi-national Corporate flunkies take back Congress and the Whitehouse then we can ALL kiss our special vital issues/causes GOODBYE!

We'd have a lot of harnesses, pullies, and cables set up between either towers or trees over a big expanse of terrain that would allow customers to go flying along well above the ground in their individual harnesses. They'd be their own independent individual kinda human cable car.

Customers would leave their pants at the ticket booth so that they could fly around in/through the harness, pully, and cable system high above the ground and whenever they felt like it they could actually shit in a truly fly by manner instead of this pansy ass cyber fly by shitting that they love so much. Make it so much realer. Thus, so much more enjoyable.

We'd set up representations of various target populations throughout the fly over area. Representations of Tea Partiers, Obamatrons, progressives, MSMs, Foxies, Washington insiders, the French, etc. Something for everyone to shit on.

After flying around shitting on everything(who knows, people might find that they like shitting on their own kind as much as anything else), customers would land in a hose down shower area to get any shit they might have inadvertently shit on themselves washed off.

Big full body blow dry tunnel.

Give'em their pants back.

And done.

If we gotta bear witness to this recurring fly by shitting shouldn't we get rich doing it? Isn't that the American way?

We could do it like a traveling carnival. Each weekend a new venue. The places we leave would have a large freely fertilized area for growing things.

Ever noticed that all the big "liberal" sites strictly enforce the "conspiracy theory" taboo? This is a transparent ploy to neuter the and render ineffectual the American "Left." The CIA has a long history of conducting disinformation campaigns here and abroad, of overthrowing even democratically elected governments, of conspiring to carry our political assassinations, and of planning and engaiging in false flag terrorism (as depicted in the novel and movie "The Quiet American").

Kos even admitted a CIA affiliation at one point, then backpedeled... He is from a family with an upper class background in El Salvador. Anyone remember what kind of government the upper class families of El Salvador were supporting in the 80's (with CIA help)?

The entire February 2010 issue of the American Behavioral Scientist is devoted to the theme of State Crimes Against Democracy. These peer-reviewed, scholarly articles point out the extent to which patterns of political criminal behavior have been repeatedly suppressed in America. They also outline the psychological barriers that have been erected to keep journalists, academics, and politicians from ever addressing "Deep" political events, largely through stigmatizing "conspiracy theory."

But with the crimes of the Bush Administration (Stolen Elections, Illegal Wars, Torture, etc.) we may be nearing a tipping point of public consciousness in which the sheer weight of undeniable and suppressed political crime can no longer be ignored simply be ad hominem attacks and a priori dismissals of the "conspiracy buffs."

One good start would be to call out the phoneys in our ranks like the transparent and sniveling Kos.

Glad I listened to that interview. It clarified for me why I can't stand to read Daily Kos.

Wonderful rhetorical tactics Markos uses. So similar to those of the Right Wing Conspiracy.

Lessee...the obvious ad hominem. Whenever Brad had a point to make, Markos talked over him with some condescending or demeaning comment ----Brad is passionate about his cause, or Brad holds a grudge --- totally sidestepping the actual content of what Brad had to say.

Then there's his The Right Wing Viewpoint Is Inevitable stance...geez we must have heard fifty times how it took the right wing media THIRTY YEARS to get where they are today. Implication was don't look for any meaningful shift to the left for another thirty years at least. That in response to Brad's "Take Back Our Media" stance, which is an action-oriented stance such as what Markos pretends to be in favor of, except when it might actually mean progress.

Yep, I tend to agree with #5 commenter Markos Moulitsas is a lying hypocrite.

Just listened to your 13 minutes with Moulitsas. He's just not looking at it. I don't know what it would take, if anything, to get him to, but he just ain't going there. He really doesn't get your point of irony. Stunning.

It seems again that just cuz you spell something out for someone does not mean they'll be able to read it.

This is one of the strangest phenomenon. You see it again and again in different contexts.(And I suspect I may do this, too, in certain situations.) A person seems to have a functioning brain. You're having a conversation about something. Then a subject comes up and for some reason, which is not immediately apparent, the person just can't go there. Some sort of personal taboo or something. It appears the person's brain shortcircuits in response to being asked to go through the taboo area. Regularly used logic and reason are momentarily and seamlessly abandoned. This may seem odd from the outside but to the person themself it goes unnoticed. Some phrase of dismissal is uttered and self-believed in lieu of logic, reason, or evidence. Then the person, without missing a beat, continues like everything is normal. With apparently no awareness that their brain just seized up a moment ago.

Whatever that is that we humans do again and again, it's just amazing. And really freaky.

Do we need to invent another language? That might be able to speak to this?

He's just not looking at it. I don't know what it would take, if anything, to get him to, but he just ain't going there. He really doesn't get your point of irony. Stunning.

I think it's deliberate and he's totally aware of what he's doing. He's playing dumb because that is
what his CIA-sponsored mission is. To become active in with groups that concern the security apparatus for corporate interests (known as "Central Intelligence Agency), and divert attention away from certain strategic areas. One such area is the fascist takeover of the United States election process through such means as unverifiable electronic voting machines (and having monopolistic ownership of the news media, which of course doesn't report it). Why would he do that? He likely believes in his mission. His CIA connection is already known. He just plays it like it is in the past and over with. Yeah, right.

I don't know Markos Moulitsas. Maybe, as you assert, he's a CIA agent. But I've had many, many conversations with friends and acquaintances who sounded a lot like he does here, making up all kinds of excuses to ignore the obvious problems with our election systems, and to the best of my knowledge none of them are CIA agents. So, maybe he is and that's the explanation for his behavior in this interview, but for me it's not hard to imagine that the answer to his seeming cluelessness may lie elsewhere.

When I've come up against what appear to be rigid or closed belief systems it seems there are unacknowledged emotional/psychological reasons informing and maintaining the protective shield around the person's thinking.

I have had remarkably little success in penetrating these shields.

Nevertheless, this does not prevent me from thinking it's possible to do so.

Markos claims there is no evidence the 2004 presidential election was stolen. I wonder if additional questions (to the two excellent ones you were allowed)might possibly begin the cracking of the seemingly impenetrable and offer the light a chance.

What is the refutation of Richard Hayes Phillips--Witness to a Crime: A Citizen's Audit of an American Election? (Cuz I haven't heard it.)

What is the refutation of cyber information expert Stephen Spoonamore's assessment that the only explanation for the computer linkups out of the Ohio Sec. of State's office in 2004 would be to perform the so called man-in-the-middle operation used to manipulate/falsify numbers? (Cuz I haven't heard it.)

Has Markos done his homework and read either the book-- Was the 2004 Presidential Election Stolen? by Freeman and Bleifuss or the article-- Was the 2004 Election Stolen by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Or is he speaking from ignorance?

Does he really reject the validity of John Conyers' detailed report of widespread election irregularities in Ohio in 2004 and his assessment that in toto they well may have cost Kerry the election?

I imagine you had a ton of follow-up you were not permitted to get to. Personally, those are some of the questions I'd like to see Moulitsas deal with.

You raise again the interesting and valid question: are these people (i.e. Markos) unaware of their hypocrisy, or is it deliberate?

I was tempted to say "deliberate" because of the rhetorical style Markos uses (see #12), but it was so smoothly done it may have been his unconscious way of deflecting unsettling arguments his brain was not ready to process. (IFF he's not lying through his teeth!) I don't know which, as I tend to avoid his site (usually feeling disappointed and frustrated whenever I go there).

He sounds so reasonable but I believe the commenters here who say they were banned from his site without any due process of the rules he had set up.

I have witnessed the banning of commenters on another "left" site (different issues) with a certain disregard of the blogger's posted rules (Talkleft). I also (back in the day) read over in another "left" site (DU) and found that commenters had been banned over election 2004 issues. It seemed at the time that there was a certain bias against election integrity advocates, otherwise known by these oh so liberal bloggers as conspiracy theorists or nutcases.

It seems that if a "hot button" is pushed,the rules temporarily go out the window and then later the blogger has apparent amnesia of what she or he did in terms of censorship of a commenter.

Also, my cynical mind has put a few observations together and also concluded that certain bannings probably occur from a desire on the bloggers' part to impress or placate certain readers of their blogs.

As to why their brains may freeze, or certain items may become "hot buttons," I say, in a nutshell, brainwashing.

Our media message is carefully manipulated to marginalize those who would seriously disturb the status quo (i.e. the rich getting richer). When a "liberal" blogger has inadvertently bought into that message on a certain issue, I would expect they would vehemently deny that they would have ever been vulnerable enough to fall for it. Therefore, their viewpoint must actually be the correct one and all other viewpoints are false.

We are ALL vulnerable and we have all been brainwashed to a certain extent. If someone points out facts that are contradictory to what we think we know, and we either ignore those facts and deflect (as Markos did to Brad) or react hotly and distance ourselves from the person bringing in the facts (like banning someone if we are a blogger), then that is a huge red flag that we may have been brainwashed, and we should reexamine our premise and look at ALL the facts, like them or not.

Most people don't want to do this work. That's what the Rabid Right is counting on.

Slightly OT, there is a marvelous sci-fi trilogy by John Twelve Hawks, beginning with The Traveler. Highly recommended reading for those of us who value and want to truly explore the meaning of the word "freedom."

I think of it as magic thinking. And I don't know the person(myself included)who doesn't have some area where they're not engaging in it. With everyone I've ever met there's some area-can be a matter of any one of innumerable internal personal or external politics--where magic thinking comes into play.

Blind spots is another way to name it.

I'm interested in the forensics of trying to understand this phenomenon better and figuring out how to overcome it in myself and others. If possible. Which I gotta believe.

Again, the reason I suspect Moulitsas is acting here out of ignorance of the subject matter and unconsciousness of his own motivations is because I've experienced so much fancy dancing around this topic by so many friends and acquaintances. I believe it's done to avoid unpleasant realities which are profoundly disturbing and which can come with concomitant responsibilities if you accept them. He just sounds like another one of those kinds of thinkers to me. I believe Josh Marshall at TPM is another. Al Franken, too.

Yeah, I don't go to Kos much either. I came to not trust him long ago. Like my dissatisfaction with MoveOn. Just not getting down to it enough.

...this comment thread is great example of why I pour over what Brad's readers have to say. It's like a Baptism for the Brain; puts plug-stoppers in the gaping leak in my Faith-in-Humanity Dike.

(Perhaps an opportune time to remind us all that we, the Non-Zombified, are STILL the majority party in this country. Hard to bear that in mind since the press can't leave the Tea-tards alone long enough to groom their poodles and tend their garden gnomes for once, sick-free, non psycho-infantalized news cycle.)

I was listening to that audio clip on the bus and I swear the 100th time that pompous, open-sored mo' kept harping like a hoopy "(but) it took 30 years for the right wing to build up their media empire!" - such a bunk-i-fied response to Brad's / Nicole's fine points - I smartly chose to remove my earbuds and listen to the homeless guy ranting in the back of the bus who was far more cogent.

If you have to tell that Ass-bag Markos-What's-His-Gut-Oulitas who has all the big money donors and all the revenue and resources in the world why progressive, terrestrial, radio is urgently needed as a matter of strategy in an INFO-WAR, not only for the good of his (assumed) party but for the very soul of the country - does it really matter *why* he's not acknowledging election fraud?

(*Not meant to dismiss David L.'s beautiful attempts to break it down / find a rational reason for...I desperately hope we will find a way to explain the total denialist / malevolence of say, a Breitbart and the total 'epidumbic' he's stoking in his supporters - just so I could hate less. Like a brain scan that proves malfunction, or festering boils on his "empath center" or something.)

D. Kos is a joke, always has been. He's the Sham-Wow guy of the Blogosphere. From day one it was clear he has no credo, no moral center, no journo-ethics, no intellectual curiosity, and no class. And *nothing* excuses his lame and ineffective attempts to belittle Brad, who's (one? allowed) question was super solid and relevant. As Brad acts as my (only) voice out there on these critical matters, it makes Kos just as malevolent as a Breitbart, to my mind, to so openly abuse the clean facts that should be so easily agreed upon as root assumption.
Lies of omission, n' all.

...and *nothing* excuses banning Richard (aka TruthisAll) and others for posting the unimpeachable *MATH* that does, in fact, prove what he claims there is no proof of. In fact, his "There is no proof", "conspiracy theory" mouth-muck makes me want to give him a fat lip on behalf of all our mathematicians who HAVE ALL THE PROOF IN THE WORLD and NO ONE WILL LET THEM SPEAK TO IT.

(**In addition to all the follow up questions David L. has posted above re: Ohio '04 - couldn't we also add the convictions for recount rigging? But I don't expect any proof will be proof enough for Murkos.**)

I don't doubt that for some of the above-named folk it is consciously done as you say, kind of like the bloggers I suspected of banning certain commenters in order to keep their readers/supporters happy.

But I do believe in blind spots, as David Lasagna puts it, and I do know we all have them.

For example, I used to have one about our government. I was brainwashed (as many of us were) to believe that the US was a force for good in the world; that even though we might make mistakes and show some rough edges sometimes, that we always meant well and were benevolent toward our own citizenry and toward other nations.

It took a very long time and the loving patience of more than one person close to me over a period of years during which they presented me with those dirty uncomfortable things called facts along with some very distressing rhetoric. I treated these ugly things that our government did as aberrations in an otherwise "good" record. I pretty much held out, I think, until 9/11. That was a significant turning point and I began to open my mind and was willing to learn why we are hated as much as we are. It took a very long time and a lot of emotional fortitude to look at fact after fact that threatened to burst my bubble, and then put them together to realize that, no, what I'm seeing is not an endless string of aberrations, it's policy.

I really do think a number of people simply cannot believe that our government would permit election fraud on a huge scale. That's for dirty politics in small towns and in Chicago, not in national or even state elections.

John Kerry knows better, I'm fairly certain of it. He apparently even admitted it privately and then recanted publicly. I haven't wanted anything to do with him since 2004.

I don't know about Al Franken, though --- the system ultimately worked in his favor, don't forget, backing up the status quo thinking.

The news media --- well, yeah, some of them know. They have to know. After all, they are the ones with disappearing web pages and changing numbers that anyone with half a brain would follow up on. And they are actively complicit in attempting to fool the rest of us.

I think you have to take people one at a time and don't assume what they know or don't know. And have patience, persistence, and a constant striving for action.

If you have to tell that Ass-bag Markos-What's-His-Gut-Oulitas who has all the big money donors and all the revenue and resources in the world why progressive, terrestrial, radio is urgently needed as a matter of strategy in an INFO-WAR, not only for the good of his (assumed) party but for the very soul of the country - does it really matter *why* he's not acknowledging election fraud?

I was specific in naming those who must know and keep silent to protect their status. Franken is no dummy. If he didn't know on Election Day 2004 about the fraud he surely knows today.

Remember when Bill Clinton said months after the 2004 "selection" that Bush won it "fair and square"? Do you think he really believed it?

When Kerry admitted to Mark Crispin Miller that he knew the election was stolen, why did he deny having said it one week later?

Of course there are many who either through ignorance or denial are unaware of what has taken place, not just in elections, because of the propaganda and false flags that they are incessantly fed by the media.

I have a number of friends who only know what they see on TV or read in the NY Times.

They can educate themselves on the Internet but refuse to look; they don't want to face the ugly truth that thy hacve been lied to all these years.

Richard-the-Truth-Is-All-Hearted, I agree with a lot of what you say and checked out your site a little and thanks a helluva lot for all the work and passion and clarity.

I would just add a little to Lora's and your comments.

1. My experience tells me that you can not underestimate the lengths that people will go to not know something. 2. You can't make up shit crazier than what people will do. 3. As Dan Wing's Mom said,"I'm constantly amazed at how few people know when to cut their losses." Those three sentences account for a lot of behavior. I just want to go deeper, to understand all of that better, to address it better. In myself and others.

And when you say--It is nothing more than "why rock the boat, the money is good and I like the job".--I think there's truth in that, and I agree that, at least to some degree, it probably applies to all or most of the people/groups you cite, but again it doesn't explain enough, for me anyway. As a reason by itself it ignores too much of consequence.

What I make up about Franken is that he's in convenient denial. If he let himself open to the possibility of the reality of how fucked we are with our election systems, he'd freak. Cuz it's completely freaky. Then he'd be a bulldog. That's what I make up anyway.

With Kerry, it's hard to even make up what his fucking deal is. He should be dedicating his life to seeing this travesty set straight. It's what he should be doing full time, non-stop. I don't think he has the courage. I imagine he makes up some convenient series of falsehoods that make it okay that he's not addressing election integrity issues head-on and helps him fool himself into believing that being quiet is the best way to get some good done. You know, one of those real politic type viewpoints. My Rep. Barney Frank seems enamored of that kind of thinking as do most of the current Dems. It's a rather tragic failure of imagination, in my opinion.

You should give Frankel more credit. Do you really think he and all the Democrats are oblivious to the stolen elections in 2000 and 2004 and the landslides that were denied in 2006 and 2008?

With all due respect, the denial argument hods know water.

You really believe that Frankel and Obama are unaware of what took place in Florida (Harris, Jeb)and Ohio (Blackwell)and in the 2008 primaries (remember Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos)?

And what about Conyers Ohio report? Do you think that Franken has not read it or never heard of it?
Franken is very thorough, is he not?

And what about Barbara Boxer and the Congressional Black Caucus efforts in Jan. 2005 to challene the electoral count?

And all those attorneys who Rove had fired because they would'nt prosecute bogus voter fraud cases?
Do you think Frankel did not put 2+2 together?

And of course let's not forget the unverifiable GOP voting machines and tabulators. Do you really believe that Franken is unaware or in denial that they are easily rigged and that he trusts the Repukes to correctly count the votes?

No, the evidence is overwhelming. Sorry to burst your Frankel bubble. This is 2010, not 2004. No excuses.

EACH AND EVERY DEMOCRATIC POLITICIAN KNOWS THAT ELECTION FRAUD IS SYSTEMIC.

THE ONLY "DENIAL" IS THE DEMOCRATIC DENIAL TO DISCUSS, MUCH LESS INVESTIGATE, ELECTION FRAUD.

This, as weird as it seems(which I know is plenty, plenty), is exactly what I'm alleging. IN SPITE OF all that evidence you cite and more, the capacity to engage in magical thinking allows people to delude themselves. I know it sounds incredible and it is. That's why it's magic.

I've had too many really smart, aware, well-read, hip friends, some of them Harvard grads like Franken and Obama, completely and dismissively deny what is so apparent to us about the prevalence of election fraud. A few that I prevailed upon to watch UnCounted changed their minds.(Even so, this does not prevent them, even after having their minds changed, from speaking about subsequent election outcomes as if those completely untrustworthy results can be trusted. This to me is further evidence of the incredible, insidious power of magic thinking to influence those who should or even do know better). A brother of one of these friends and another very smart, well-read guy continued to vehemently argue against the all too obvious election fraud until he too finally watched that movie. You'd think maybe having a beloved sister and a beloved brother-in-law who had come to believe that election fraud was a very real and present danger might have helped move his perceptions. Apparently not. It wasn't until he saw the compelling evidence for himself that his opinion changed.

I know all those people you mentioned are in Washington and should be aware. As you say, how can they not be. Seems impossible. But this is what I'm saying about the power of magic thinking. It helps overcome each and every obstacle. And I suspect that people(especially Washington politicians and media)tend to be in their own bubbles.

Let's take Barney Frank for example. Please.

I went to see him years ago in his local office in the hopes of bringing some awareness (and the considerable force of his personality) to this gigundo problem. My presentation was short, clear, and in easy to understand steps.

Barney Frank listened. But cuz he's smarter than I am, and because he thinks he knows everything, and because he's a Washington guy, I don't think he believed me. I referred him to Maxine Waters cuz I'd seen evidence that she was hip to the jive. Thought maybe they were Progressive Caucus friends and he'd listen to her if not me. Turns out they are friends and he said he'd check it out with her. I see no evidence that he did.

Barney Frank is chairman of the Finance Committee. I think it is not unlikely that though one would hope with all those excellent reasons you gave for why people in Washington must know about election fraud, that Barney is so completely engrossed in his own business at his own committee that this fundamental issue never crosses his radar. So what looks to you and me like a no brainer that can't be missed, is actually quite easily missed.

Anyhoo, that's my best guess.

We should agree to disagree. Our dysfunction in this country is big enough for everyone. And everyone's gotta do what they gotta do. Let me and Lora and Jeannie work this angle cuz maybe we're predisposed to. You work yours. Same team.

Maybe there is a middle ground. It could be that many in Congress are neither in denial or participating in a coverup. Maybe they are ignorant and/or math challenged and cannot appreciate that the odds are astronmical that Bush won fairly in 2004 - and that the GOP has had 4% padded to their vote since 1968.

For example:

1)In 2004, 29 state exit polls exceeded the margin of error - all in favor of Bush. The odds are less than 1 in 100,000 trillion.

2) The EIRS (Election Incident Repoerting System) indicated that 86 of 88 touchscrees switched the vote from Kerry to Bush. The odd are
1 in 79,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

3) In the five elections from 1988 to 2004, there were 238 state exit polls. Of the 238, 65 exceeded the 3% MoE (very conservative). Of the 65, 64 favored the Republican.

I think perhaps a paradigm shift has to occur before otherwise highly intelligent people stop glazing over their eyes, smiling and nodding to get rid of you thereby avoiding an unpleasant confrontation with a fanatic (you) on the subject of election fraud, specifically with electronic elections.

The paradigm shift is to realize and accept that the rulers of our country and a good part of the world are not necessarily our "elected" officials and that they will stop at nothing to achieve their ends.

I suspect that only after fully accepting this basic fact can otherwise intelligent minds be actually open to something like election fraud on a large scale that goes against the grain of everythign they were taught about this "democracy."

Because then it is a relatively easy jump to see that if they will use blackops tactics in so many other arenas, why wouldn't they attempt to control our elections too?

My guess is that many intelligent folks really don't get how pervasive and ruthless the tactics of the ruling class actually are. They have to go there first.

It may be that all the above-named by Truthisall DO know and are keeping quiet for various reasons: political expediency of course, or perhaps just survival --- political or otherwise. Let us not forget a certain recent plane crash.

Or maybe they just don't quite get the ruthlessness and pervasiveness of the ruling class. They'd have to restructure their lifelong paradigm for that.

You are not the only one to get posts purged from a supposedly liberal blog. Rob Cole deleted my post about the security of Internet voting. Guess he doesn't want to take his head out of the sand. And he thinks he is a lover of open debate!

We have clear rules for posting here at The BRAD BLOG. As long as you mind them, and don't inappropriately spam comments, we wouldn't delete your posts, no matter how insane, unAmerican, undemocratic the madness of Internet Voting may be, despite your short-sighted, unrelenting advocacy for it may be, William.

Al Franken might not want to be Wellstoned. I personally do not hold it against people to want to live and do good in a constrained environment.Think about Al's valiant efforts for women who had been raped by Halliburton employees. If he were in the grave , no one would have spoken out. Guess this is situational ethics...but every democrat who has spoken out has had bad things to happen. My big question, and the reason I am banned from all the blogs except DU(can't figure out how to post there) is "Why do we all hesitate to use the F word. Fascism."Esp. after TARP. WE paid billions for the banksters gambling habit...and now they are talking about stripping Social Security. Calling it an entitlement. We should get something for taxes besides endless nonsensical war.The word fascism is on the same scale with so called progressive blogs as election fraud.Don't believe me? Try it.

The spawn of a wealthy family with a long history of supporting murderous and repressive regimes and extremist death squads in El Salvador, Markos Moulitsas had a long history of supporting Republicans. He frequently lies about his family, his past, and his identity, and suddenly became "progressive" after training with the CIA. In applying strategies long used by the CIA, his blog is clearly designed to fragment the progressive community.

I'll add that whether Markos Moulitsas actually works for the CIA on a mission to direct progressive community away from areas that threaten the far-right corporatocracy takeover of the United States, he might as well be. The main thing is that he obfuscates discussion on issues vital to having election integrity in the United States. He helps pave the way for a complete fascist takeover of the United States (it is already over 90% done, as it is).

Markos Moulitsas is what is known as a left gatekeeper, in other words someone whose purpose is to pretend to be leftist while actually keeping political discourse trapped within the confines of what is considered safe for the ruling elite. That's why DailyKos bans anyone who dares to point out how laughably ridiculous the official myth of 9/11 is. They are free to say the Cheney regime politicized it, sure, just like another well-known left gatekeeper Keith Olbermann says. But anything beyond that and they get permanently banned from the site. Same with another left gatekeeper site Crooks & Liars.

The whole point is for the "powers that be" to control both sides of a debate. They let their right wingers go wild and say whatever they want to say because they know that the right wingers are slavish in their devotion to the corporate ruling elite and its power structure so they don't have to worry about them. Then instead of genuine leftist commentators and bloggers they have controlled puppets like Markos Moulitsas there to cover the "left's" side of the issue. That way to an uninformed observer there is a wide spectrum of political discourse in the U.S. instead of the reality, canned debates in which nobody is allowed to mention the 1,000-lb. gorillas in the room like 9/11 and the fact that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice are all war criminals who should be tried for their crimes against humanity instead of being allowed to sip mint juleps in a comfortable retirement. What's amazing is that so few Americans seem to realize how badly they are being led around by the nose by those who purport to be offering the full spectrum of debate.